+L's message to educators: Aim high

+L's message to educators: Aim high
Acrobats, astronauts inspire attendees of NSBA's annual technology conference to innovate and take risks
By Meris Stansbury, Assistant Editor, eSchool News advertisement

The National School Boards Association's 2007 T+L conference, held Oct. 17-19 in Nashville, Tenn., urged educators to think outside the box to encourage the kind of innovation needed to ensure success in the 21st century.

October 29, 2007—Under palm trees and hanging lights, over a bridge that crossed between rose gardens and a live band dressed like shrubbery, educators attending the National School Boards Association's 2007 T+L conference were urged to inspire and be inspired.
The annual ed-tech conference took place Oct. 17-19 in Nashville, Tenn., at the Gaylord Opryland Resort Hotel--a convention center that boasts a 44-foot waterfall and its own indoor riverboat ride--and provided a setting where educators seemed like characters in "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

In total, there were some 200 exhibitor booths, 1,800 participants, and two unusual choices for keynote speakers at an ed-tech event: the creative mastermind behind Cirque du Soleil and the founder of commercial space travel.

However, that was exactly the point conference organizers were making--to think outside the box and use new ways to encourage the kind of innovation that is needed for 21st-century success.

The opening speaker was Lyn Heward, Cirque's former president of creative content, who stood in front of a giant screen that featured whirling acrobats. Day two's speaker, Peter Diamandis, the brains behind the X Prize Foundation, later stood in front of the same giant screen--only instead of professional acrobats, teachers and students tumbled and cavorted in zero gravity.

"This isn't just about managing people, it's about knowing how to inspire, how to stimulate, and how to achieve results," explained Heward. Though she was referring to her own responsibilities as a circus director, she also was describing many key traits that educators, too, need to reach their goals.

To be a good leader (and educator), Heward said, one must apply creativity to everyday tasks. She gave the example of how Cirque casts its acrobats: "We don't do cattle calls, we have closed screenings. We ask them to climb up a rope, of course, but we also ask them to sing as they hang on with nothing but their legs." By asking individuals to push themselves creatively, Cirque not only inspires its members but builds a team around multiple, well-rounded skills.

Diamandis and his foundation have managed, after eleven and a half years of work, to convince the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to allow specially engineered planes, called Zero Gs, to carry commercial passengers--and this year, 400 were teachers.

The foundation's Northrup Grumann Program, based around Zero G flights, gives students and educators a complete science package with pre-flight workshops, seminars, informational materials, and tools about space, physics, and many other subjects.

"Teachers say they come back from Zero G and their students view them as heroes," Diamandis told a captivated audience. "It builds interest in science. Those teachers who have gone have managed to raise science assessment scores in their classes by as much as 20 percent."

For her part, Heward described how Cirque's main goal is not to mold a performer into a character, but to find the character unique to him or her. "There's so much individual potential, and it's our job to help [performers] reach that potential ... to help them become who they really are inside," she said.

Although educators, too, must help each student reach his or her potential, collaboration also is crucial to success.